updated 06:25 am EDT, Wed September 5, 2012

Samsung confirms that two unreleased OLED TVs have disappeared

Samsung has had two of its highly prized OLED TVs disappear enroute to the IFA consumer electronics show in Berlin. The company confirmed that it the two 55-inch sets went missing sometime between August 21 and August 28. Although the company was able to get replacement units on hand for the show, it does not know what has happened to them and has been in contact with Berlin police about the matter.

A Samsung spokesman said that while they had raised the matter with the local authorities, they could not be certain that the TVs went missing in Germany, or when exactly they fell off the radar. Although the issue of industrial espionage was raised with Samsung, the company was not inclined to neccesarily draw that conclusion. It could also not confirm how much the production-ready OLED TVs could be worth, as official launch or pricing details have yet to be announced by the Korean tech giant.

According to Reuters, some media reports indicate that if it was a theft designed to steal Samsung display technology in order to reverse engineer it, the damage to potentially run into the billions of dollars. Expected to launch sometime later this year, the retail versions are expected to go on sale for up to $10,000 per unit, or roughly ten times the cost of an equivalent LCD model.